• 1900
  The 1900 census shows the following populations: Burrillville 6,317; Foster 1,151; Glocester 1,462; Johnston 4,305; North Providence 3,016; Scituate 3,361; and Smithfield 2,107.
  


• 1907
  Fire destroys several buildings in Chepachet Village.
  


• 1914
  A trolley makes its first trip into Chepachet.
  


• 1915
  Scituate is chosen as the site for a reservoir to supply water to Providence. The next year, the condemnation notices go out to the residents in the town's "Lost Villages."
  


• 1919
  A portion of Johnston was annexed to Providence.
  


• 1924
  A crowd estimated at 8,000 attends a Ku Klux Klan rally in Foster Center one summer night. Several hundred people are "initiated" at the rally.
  
  The Watchman Institute in Scituate, a boarding school for black children, is partially burned. Another fire hits again in 1926 and in 1934.
  
  
• 1926
  Scituate Reservoir is completed.
  


• 1927
  The Ancients and Horribles parade debuts in Glocester.
  


• 1930s
  The Great Depression sweeps across the country. Unemployment is widespread. Beginning in 1935, the Works Progress Administration provides jobs for public works projects. In 1936, WPA laborers create new sidewalk along Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence.
  


• 1933
  The original Hope School in Scituate, used as a community center, is remodeled for the town's police department.
  


• 1940s
  Mills throughout northwestern Rhode Island retool to work under government contracts. They supply the great U.S. military expansion during World War II with blankets, uniforms, gas masks, rope, wire and shoes.
  


• 1946
  Hawkins' Mill in Glocester is destroyed by fire.
  


• 1950s
  Every town except Burrillville grows by 25 percent.
  


• 1951
  New $1.7 million North Central State Airport, in Smithfield-Lincoln, is dedicated.
  


• 1952
  Capt. Isaac Paine School opens, ending an era of one-room schoolhouses in rural Foster.
  


• 1954
  The Fatima unit of St. Joseph Hospital in North Providence is completed.
  
  The Mohegan Mill in Burrillville shuts down.
  


• 1961
  The Foster Town Council narrowly rejects a plan to build a harness race track in town.
  
  The Star Theater in downtown Pascoag reopens, drawing hundreds of movie-goers.
  


• 1968
  Flash floods wreak havoc in the area; the Stillwater River cuts a gorge through Mountaindale Road in Smithfield.
  
  
• Late 1960s
  Scituate Arts Festival debuts. The proceeds are used to restore the Old Congregational Church.
  


• 1977
  In June, Foster begins renovations for its 200-year-old Town House, the oldest in continuous use in the state.
  


• 1978
  The Great Blizzard hits the Northwest.
  
  State declines to renew the license of the Glocester-Smithfield Regional Landfill because of numerous violations. It becomes a Superfund site in 1986.
  
  State Solid Waste Management Corporation begins negotiations with Silvestri Bros. in Johnston to buy their dump. It will later become the state Central Landfill.
  


• 1984
  A spectacular fire destroys the sprawling Stillwater Mill complex in Smithfield. It takes 200 firefighters 13 hours to bring the blaze under control.
  


• 1986
  Retired state trooper Joseph P. Green takes over as Glocester police chief. He replaces former Chief Richard B. Tooher who, along with former Lt. Bruce N. Binns, were convicted of planting evidence to support the arrest of a burglary suspect.
  
  Johnston Mayor Ralph aRusso orders a police blockade of the state Central Landfill and refuses to allow trucks carrying out-of-state trash to dump there.
  
  Snipers terrorize northern Rhode Island, injuring four people. Two Burrillville men, a part of the so-called "Blackstone Valley Snipers," are later arrested.
  
  
• 1990
  The 1990 census puts the combined populace of the Northwest region at 117,364, a roughly 440 percent increase from 1900.
  


• 1993
  Three teenagers are shot and killed and another injured while fixing their cars in a Foster garage. Foster Patrolman Robert G. Sabetta, suspended while facing criminal charges for assaulting one of the youths, was convicted of the murders and sentenced in 1994 to three consecutive life sentences.
  
  Arsonists burn down the covered bridge over Swamp Meadow Brook in Foster. The bridge is rebuilt in 1994.
  



• Mancini

  1994
  North Providence Mayor Salvatore Mancini, the town's first mayor and a figure of statewide political importance, dies during his 20th year in office.
  
  In Johnston, Mayor Ralph R. aRusso is defeated by Town Council President Louis A. Perrotta in a Democratic primary, ending aRusso's 18-year reign as the town's first mayor.
  


• 1998
  Money woes in Johnston reach a crisis level when the town's deficit is estimated at $18 million and the state threatens to take control of the town's finances.
  
  The Smithfield deputy public works director strangles his wife, the town's deputy town clerk, and then takes his own life.
  


• 1999
  The Environmental Protection Agency announces that preliminary tests along the Woonasquatucket River in North Providence show higher dioxin levels in the soil than it deems safe.
  
  A Johnston man, nine years after he fell under suspicion in the disappearance of his wife, fatally shoots his ex-girlfriend, critically injures her boyfriend and then turns the gun on himself.
  
  A North Providence woman in her eighth month of pregnancy gives birth to Rhode Island's first set of quintuplets, but the fifth baby is born dead.
  

A yearlong Providence Journal series about life in Rhode Island.
Produced in cooperation with the Rhode Island Historical Society.